


Thawing Out

by nightships



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: 4x02, CS Secret Santa, CSSS 2017, Canon Compliant, F/M, Thawing Out, White Out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 14:30:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13168896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightships/pseuds/nightships
Summary: Emma's just beginning to warm up after her misadventure with Elsa at the ice wall. Now that things are as quiet as they ever get in Storybrooke, her family - Killian included - make the most of what their warm loft has to offer. A fluffy, wintry CS Secret Santa fic for delightfully-difficult-pirate on Tumblr.





	Thawing Out

“You were right,” Elsa says, the hem of her gown swishing softly as she rounds the corner from the kitchen to the living room. “That machine wasn’t very hard to figure out.”

“Thank you.” Emma unearths a hand from her blankets to accept a steaming mug of coffee from her newest friend, setting it atop the quilt covering her knee. She’s long since traded the lounger chair for a seat on the couch, but her muscles are sore now that her nerves are thawing out.

She tries to say more, but just the breath draws up a cough. The cold had scratched rawness into her throat, drying and chilling all it could reach. The back of her hands still feel like ice as her body warms from her core to her extremities — even she can admit she’ll be out of commission for a day or two. Emma takes a swig from the mug to stifle her cough, and the next noise from her is one of surprise. Whatever Elsa’s made her, it does not taste like Swiss Miss.

“Did you put something in this?”

Elsa’s cheeks faintly color. “My sister and I love to drink hot cocoa when it’s cold. It’s not Arendelle chocolate, but I tried my best.”

“It’s incredible.” The smell wafting up from the mug is rich, like the whole thing is filled with melted chocolate. It’s ridiculous that Elsa looks unsure, even if she understands the apology behind the offering. Emma nearly manages to ask about the sister she’s looking for when Henry comes tumbling back down the stairs, pajama-clad and towing the quilt off his own bed.

“I promise you, kid, I have enough,” she chuckles, fighting back another cough.

“I brought it down for me,” he tells her, pretending it was his plan all along. He seems intent on sleeping at her side for the night, and she doesn’t quite have it in her to tell him no — especially since he’s not the only one.

Save for taking off his own boots and following her to the couch, Killian has yet to leave her side. At first he’d knelt next to the chair, watching nervously as her mother and father warmed her with blankets and an electric heater. He’d hung back quietly while the rest of them debated calling Doctor Whale, the quiet brush of his thumb against her hand the only reminder he was even in the room.

Slowly, feeling returned to her fingertips and toes, and somewhere along the way she’d ended up here — Killian’s arm around the three layers of blanket surrounding her shoulders and the rest of her family filling the room.

It was a little overwhelming, the way each of them kept trying to find ways to take care of her. If it wasn’t the mug of cocoa it was an extra layer of socks on her feet. If it wasn’t the socks, it was her father adjusting the angle of the electric heater every five minutes.

She can feel the rumble of another small laugh in his chest when her mother gets up in search of another pillow for her. It’s the least serious noise he’s made since they got back, which is another good sign, but it doesn’t lessen her own annoyance.

“Think Elsa would mind freezing anyone else?” she mutters, watching Henry wrestle his own quilt as he folds himself into the chair.

“It might not hurt to ask.” He turns and considers her, clearly glad that her family is all she has to complain about. There’s still a fair amount of relief in his eyes, but there’s tenderness too, a softness that matches the gentle weight of his hook brace on her knee. It remains long after her family manages to calm down and divert their focus toward settling Elsa up for the night.

Granny’s more than willing to take a new resident without causing a commotion. Her parents take her, along with a few hastily grabbed clothes from Emma’s room, and for a while everything in the loft is entirely quiet. Henry’s long since fallen victim to the combination of his own cocoa and blanket. The hiss from the electric heater and the quiet snores from her son are all she hears, and for the first time she almost feels warm. Emma lets herself daydream, thoughts wandering until a particularly amusing one tugs at the corner of her mouth.

“We’ve got to get you something with a higher collar.”

“Pardon, Swan?” Killian answers, sounding half-asleep himself. Without the flurry of her parents and Elsa around them he’s relaxed against the back of the couch. If it weren’t for all the black leather, he’d look perfectly at home.

“I know the cold doesn’t bother Elsa, but the rest of us have to buy coats.”

“I have a coat,” he insists, a little stubbornness working its way into his voice. He sounds like Henry does when she wakes him up for school, and suddenly it’s hard not to picture him here, especially knowing he traded away his own home to bring her back to hers.

“Does it actually keep you warm?” she counters.

“Neverland had a decidedly warm climate, love. Besides,” he shifts, fiddling with a lock of her hair that’s come free of the blankets, “I’m far from cold at the moment.”

A whisper of a smile makes its way across his mouth, and she can’t help but agree. She can feel the warmth in his thumb as it brushes her jawline, in his eyes as they follow the motion and linger on her lips, in the soft anticipation building in her stomach as she watches to see what he’ll do.

Her father picks that moment to walk through the door, and then its the warmth of embarrassment coloring the tips of Killian’s ears pink that she lingers on. Mary Margaret gently wakes Henry, nudging him up toward his room, but David’s concern is laser-focused on her.

“I think it might be best if we all got to sleep,” he says pointedly, nodding up the stairs. “Emma, I can help you up the stairs if you need it.”

Killian takes the hint, squeezing her shoulder before moving to stand. He reaches toward his boots, seemingly intent on putting them back on, and Mary Margaret nudges her husband in the small of his back, a not-so-subtle hint of her own.

“Killian,” David relents with a long-suffering sigh, as if they’ve been arguing about this on the entire trip back from dropping Elsa off, “We’ve got an extra pillow or two if you want the couch for tonight.”

“I’m sure Granny has a bed to spare, mate, but thank you.”

“It’s the least we can do,” Mary Margaret insists, laying her hand on David’s shoulder before he can accept Killian’s reply. “We insist.”

Killian turns to see how Emma feels, whether it’s too much, but he only catches her smirking in amusement at her father’s dubious expression. It’s the quiet joke between them, the shared connection she’s only beginning to let herself explore, that has her memorizing his answering nod for a moment when she’s alone in her bed.

“All right,” he answers softly, setting his boots back down. “If you insist.”

Snow, real snow, falls softly on the windowsill in the morning when Emma awakes. Soft voices filter up from the kitchen, along with the smell of honey and syrup, and she realizes she’s almost swelteringly warm. Someone — she’s not sure which of her parents are to blame — set another heavy blanket over her as she slept, and it’s more than done its job.

Her legs are sore when she swings them out to set her feet on the floor, but they hold steady, carrying her down the stairs. Henry and Killian are at work in the kitchen, the younger flipping a pair of pancakes on the griddle as the older frowns at the coffee machine.

“The light keeps flashing. It’s not pouring the water out.”

“You’ve got to push it down at the top, like this,” Henry instructs, leaving the spatula behind. He’s genuinely patient with the pirate, which is its own source of amusement as she moves closer.

“The bloody Ice Queen got it to work,” Killian grumbles, stepping away to give Henry room.

“Maybe she used her magic,” Henry suggests, pushing the mug beneath the dispenser just as hot water begins to pour out. He notices her when he turns back to look at his pancakes and lets out a loud groan of disappointment at her presence, even as he steps forward to hug her.

“Good morning to you too, kid,” she laughs, tucking her arm around his shoulder.

“We were gonna surprise you with breakfast,” he explains, sighing heavily. “You weren’t supposed to wake up yet.”

“It smells too good. I couldn’t stay asleep.” She catches Killian’s eye, taking in the softness a night’s sleep has laid on his face, and just like before, it feels right. He fits in perfectly amidst her mom’s kitchenware and her son’s bedhead.

“Morning, love,” he smiles, not even pretending he’s disappointed. “Are you hungry?”

“I guess I’d better be,” she replies, looking at the formidable stack of pancakes they’ve already made. “Weren’t you two tired?”

“I woke up and came down here and Killian was already awake. I knew he didn’t know where we kept the cereal or the bowls, but he asked me if I was hungry, too, and then he said we should make everyone breakfast!”

“It was the least I could do,” he admits, echoing her mom’s words from the night before. Killian reaches behind him and holds the steaming mug out for her, stepping closer so she doesn’t have to cross the kitchen to speak to him. As far as either of them can tell, David and Mary Margaret are still asleep across the loft.

“Thanks for helping him,” she tells him, slipping her hand over his rather than simply taking the mug from him. She leans in and presses a soft kiss to his cheek while Henry’s distracted with plating more pancakes, and then she tugs him over to sit at the countertop.

Henry insists they make breakfast a big affair, going so far as to lament the fact that Elsa couldn’t join them. If her father feels uncertain about having Killian at the counter with them, he doesn’t say a word. It’s about the closest thing to normal that they’ve ever had in Storybrooke. With her family surrounding her and Killian’s foot nudging hers every so often, she eats slowly, letting herself hope it’ll last.

For the first time in a while, she has a good feeling that it will.


End file.
